Collapse of the American Empire: swift, silent, certain

Marketwatch ^ | March 9, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EST | Paul B. Farrell

[SmokingJoe]

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse," warns anthropologist Jared Diamond in "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." Many "civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society's demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power."

Now, Harvard's Niall Ferguson, one of the world's leading financial historians, echoes Diamond's warning: "Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice." Yes, America is on the edge.

Dismiss his warning at your peril. Everything you learned, everything you believe and everything driving our political leaders is based on a misleading, outdated theory of history. The American Empire is at the edge of a dangerous precipice, at risk of a sudden, rapid collapse.

Ferguson is brilliant, prolific and contrarian. His works include the recent "Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World;" "The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World;" "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of The American Empire;" and "The War of the World," a survey of the "savagery of the 20th century" where he highlights a profound "paradox that, though the 20th century was 'so bloody,' it was also 'a time of unparalleled progress.'"

Why? Throughout history imperial leaders inevitably emerge and drive their nations into wars for greater glory and "economic progress," while inevitably leading their nation into collapse. And that happens suddenly and swiftly, within "a decade or two."

[indthkr]

Niall Ferguson bump for later...........

[Persevero]

Yes, I do think there would be rioting, a lot of murder, starvation, death by cholera and so forth, and a lot of suffering.

I just tend to think we as a nation would survive.

[highlander_UW]

Yes, I do think there would be rioting, a lot of murder, starvation, death by cholera and so forth, and a lot of suffering. I just tend to think we as a nation would survive.

Hopefully this is all hypothetical. that being said, it's impossible to say for sure, obviously, but I would suspect that some regions might take a shot at Independence of the US were to crash...Texas for example. I don't know if you ever saw a TV show called Jericho. They posited something like 20 nukes going off in the US that took out almost all of the government leadership. Eventually there were several factions, 3 as I recall, that arose...a Western power, an Eastern power and a Texas confederation. Obviously that's just a TV show but that short of fragmentation wouldn't be outside of the realm of possibility depending upon the nature and extent of a crash.

[indthkr]

"We sense the 'consummation' of the American Empire occurred with the leadership handoff from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. to the 'Baby Boomers' "

That fixes it............

[americanophile]

Agreed. Paul Ryan is floating a plan that addresses our debt, including future entitlement spending. His plan includes what are essentially social security opt outs for younger workers (private savings accounts). It’s a fairly bold and aggressive plan, and that’s what’s needed, so that’s a positive thing. Unfortunately it’s painful, and we all know there’s no political will for anything that’s painful...so off the cliff we go.

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	I can't think of a single occurrence of a sudden collapse of an empire. The post-WWI redrawing of the map of Europe by the victorious (and severely bloodied) British and French eliminated the Austrian-Hungarian Empire; the modern German state put together by Otto von wasn't an empire, merely a late-to-the-party nation-state. Rome started to fall apart in the 3rd century, and the western half didn't finally collapse until early in the 5th century; whereas the eastern half went on a thousand years more. The continuum of Elam-Persia-Parthia was around for thousands of years, and one could argue that it has been revived again. Thanks SmokingJoe. ...anthropologist Jared Diamond in "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[Fiddlstix]

Collapse of the American Empire: swift, silent, certain

Am I missing something? When did America become an empire?

[SmokingJoe]

Am I missing something? When did America become an empire?

Niall Ferguson is Scottish. These British still think in terms of Empires. They still haven't gotten over the fact that they lost the British Empire.

[Fiddlstix]

Hmmmmm.........
That makes sense.......
You're right.....

[NYer]

"Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice."

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

George Santayana

[blam]

Thanks.

I don't care much for political correct Jared Diamond.

I'm presently reading Brian Fagan's new book, Cro-Magnon.
I like for a book to tell me someething that I didn't know. I'm on page 65 and it's failed so far.

[colorado tanker]

This guy doesn't cite any historical examples and I agree his theory doesn't square with history.

The closest analogue I can think of was the British post-WWII withdrawal from India and points east of Suez. But that wasn't a "collapse" and it wasn't a complete withdrawal. In a sense the Empire morphed into empire-lite in the form of the Commonwealth.

I agree Turkey was not a sudden collapse - it had been in decline for centuries, causing problems some of which continue to plague us.

The Allies delivered the coup de grace to Austria-Hungary, but it had been unraveling since losing the Austro-Prussian War and it's place in Germany.

I suppose if you consider the old Soviet Union to be an "empire" (as the successor to the Russian Empire?), it did come apart suddenly with the Russian Federation declaration of independence and foundation of the CIS. Given Russia's retention of influence in it's so-called "near abroad," retention of it's nuclear arsenal and succession to the Soviet place in the Security Council it could be argued the Soviet empire never collapsed.

Frankly, this piece has the flavor of a Bush-hater who has dressed up his opinion that America's foreign and defense policies will lead to disaster in the form of academic theory.

[SunkenCiv]

I agree with your take on it.

[x]

Vague generalities are pointless.

Pointless? Generalizations aren't always right, and don't predict the future, but they do reveal patterns and contours that it would be foolish to ignore.

[SunkenCiv]

Fagan cranks out too many books, IMHO, hoping one will catch fire. Or he just has a lot of energy, writes every day, his book sell decent, his publisher craves more, and he's making hay while the Sun shines. :') Speaking of the Sun shining:

The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850 by Brian M. Fagan Paperback	Floods, Famines, and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations by Brian M. Fagan	The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization by Brian M. Fagan

[GenXteacher]

I think the Limey is on to something. History does show that civilizations collapse, and the old saying is “All good things come to an end.” Inevitably, the United States will not always be here. Will that be the end of civilization? Maybe. What will come afterward? That depends on the situation of the breakdown. Rome fell to migrations of barbarians, after being divided and having frequent internal wars that weakened it militarily; the British empire disintegrated as broken, war-exhausted Britain retreated into itself to become the lame socialist nanny-state it is now; the Soviet Union fell to pieces after its constituent peoples realized the Russians did not have the will to hold them in a brutal thralldom. All these led to different things- and however the US comes to an end will have much to do with how it turns out. About the only thing really separating us from previous empires is that we do pick our leaders, and as 2008 shows, we do not always pick wisely nor do we have much to pick from.

For my part, I expect the US will probably fragment, as the differences between conservatives and liberals deepen to the point of irreconcilability. As our own Civil War shows, we can compromise only so far before people turn to gunpowder and steel to settle their differences, especially where one side or the other is determined to have its way at all costs. I’m not sure we are there yet- Rome’s period of peace ended in 192 with the assassination of Commodus, and the western Roman empire was dismembered in 476 AD. (The eastern Roman empire persisted until 1453 AD before falling prey to jihad...) Rome’s example is particularly striking- when Ben Franklin said “a republic, if you can keep it” he had them in mind, as they lost theirs after about 500 years.

As far as whether we are an empire or not, I have seen a definition in a textbook for an empire as “a major political unit with a large population and/or large amounts of territory.” A rather loose definition, but it fits the US. We may not have an emperor, but we do have about everything else.

[SmokingJoe]

Thanks for the historical perspective.
In addition, as others ave pointed out, America has never been an empire. We never ruled Germany, Western Europe, Japan or any of the Asian countries we liberated in WW II, so in that respect, we have no empire to lose.
This is all about American power, influence and propsterity, and whether we are going to be able to continue enjoying the high standrds of living we have had, if we contiue racking up massive debts and continue to depend on foreigners to finance huge chunks of our federal budgets.
Even worse, we appear to be developing a culture that rewards sloth, while punishing hard work, initiative and creativity. We are doomed if we get to a point where most of our citizens come to develop a culture of dependency on an increasingly broke government.

[wildbill]

How about the Inca and Aztec empires? I suppose it depends on how large you require for a definition of “empire”, but they had conquered other peoples to expand their power and control and that seems to be the best definition.

We don’t have a classic empire that would be covered by the definitions—but we have a distinct culture an form of government within our nation state—and that culture is under attack from within and without with the economy about to tank with entitlements.

[DTogo]

Likely heading toward R2/CW2. Prepared Patriots will resurrect America. Many Obamulans will probably not survive.

[colorado tanker]

Good points. You're right, America isn't an "empire" but in a sense we are serving the same purpose as the old British Empire in preventing the imposition of authoritarian rule over the civilized world. We did it in the Cold War and it looks like we have to again as to islamofascism.

I'm still optimistic about America's future. If the fall elections go as the seem now Barry's power to do harm could be drastically curtailed. If Barry is turned out in 2012 a responsible conservative President could then start repairing the damage, as Reagan did in 1980.